click
Cirque du Soleil's Kà
Part 2
PYRO & SPECIAL FX
Greg Meeh, who heads the seven person pyro and special effects department, commented: "We've got a wide range of equipment here - including liquid nitrogen machines from Interesting Products, 10 Ice Foggers and glycol hot fog machines from MDG, and a Viper pump-driven machine from Look of Germany which promotes the industrial feel of the Archers' Den. We also have six of the Interactive Foggers that produce the cold, low-laying fog that's essential around the boat in the storm scene. It's all controlled from a Strand console."
Flame mortars (a system from Florida's Sigma Systems), dust explosions, 'vicious flashes' and other effects from Le Maitre are among those gracing the various scenes, culminating in the stunning finale that Meeh described: "The pyro finale is a huge Catherine Wheel that starts small and grows from about a 30 foot diameter to about 60 feet, with spark circles shooting around for 30 seconds. It's manufactured by MDG and it's radio controlled which is something I'm always reluctant to do, but it's our only option in this situation and it's proved to be quite reliable."
PROJECTION
The most startling projection moment in Kà occurs in the battlefield scene where the artists are on ropes and swing from the edge of the pit to bounce off the Sand Cliff deck, where it appears that their hands and feet are creating pressure on water. In reality, infra-red cameras are used to identify their movements, sending the information back to the computers, which then manipulate the image shown on the deck's projection tile in interactive fashion.
Said Förterer: "It's a tracking technique that enables us to film the scene with a camera and at the same time project on it so that the camera does not see the projected image. In that way, we get no feedback into interactive. Tracking has been used for decades but we're still just starting to explore the use of those techniques in various ways. What we are able to create is one step further than virtual reality - we call it 'augmented reality'."
At other times, computer generated textures such as granite or marble are projected on to the Sand Cliff deck; a projected rope simulation is applied in the forest scene, and when there are bubbles projected in the underwater scene after the storm, this is just one example of how all departments are linked together on a cueing network.
"We hand our information while we are creating bubbles over to the sound so they can create the sound at the right position. At the moment that those pegs come out of the Sand Cliff deck, we trigger sound effects. We have a network connection that allows our departments to interact with each other's effects cueing, through the use of a program called Max [enabling media information to be mixed with network information] - we can trigger sound on their side and they can trigger lightning on the video, for example, by this open network."
AUDIO
When designing for Kà, Deans was concerned with the actual working space and installed Level Control Systems' (LCS) VRAS - Variable Room Acoustic System - to alter the acoustics of the room. He explained: "It's 1.9 million cubic square feet in this theatre, so dealing with high energy sound as Cirque do for certain performances and then silences, becomes something difficult to control in a room this large. VRAS takes information from 40 microphones that are listening to the room, and it helps us make it sound like an aeroplane hangar or as intimate as a living room."
From the moment the 'pre-show' begins, the audience is "impregnated" with unsettling sound and any pre-conceptions of what to expect immediately evaporate. Said Deans: "As they come in, they can hear our harpists playing these beautiful sounds and as they move into the auditorium, the space comes to life in a weird way with industrial, groaning, metallic sounds that might have been recorded 1,000 years ago. Our intention is to completely envelop the audience and I need to make sure that all the video work that Holger's doing is complimented."
The sound reinforcement system appears at first sight to be fairly minimal in the context of the space. However, Deans advised that there are loudspeakers everywhere [see boxout]. "We have two sets of Meyer line arrays plus the old EFX sound system hidden in the ceiling, and the special thing here is that there are two speakers built into every seat. They're made by American Technology and the panels were custom built for the Cirque. The aim is to deliver the same sound to every member of the audience, and if you're not in one of those seats you're missing a lot of the poetry. This has been done before in theme parks, but it's certainly new in live entertainment.
"There are speakers in the basement, over the grid house, along the sides and back of the auditorium, and additional sub woofers in the ceiling that are coupled to the seats. The seats are in 16 zones that we time-align to either the stage, the side, the ceiling or to itself."
Deans chose digital modular consoles from LCS for control at the FOH and monitor positions. "I'm always looking at new technology and luckily enough right now the industry is just exploding. The great thing about the LCS boards is that four of us can control different elements of the mixer, including sound FX, from laptops anywhere in the room, via wireless remote. We also fly sound around using LCS' Space Maps program and a mouse or joystick, assigning sounds to any of the eight Meyer Sound Beam 2s that are positioned in a circle around the house."
All of the musicians on-stage and many of the performers are on Sennheiser or Shure IEM systems. Said Deans: "As well as feeding them the music, the stage manager is able to talk directly to each of them and issue important instructions if necessary."
There are eight sound engineers working on Kà, one of whom is dedicated to RF. "Frequencies are a hot subject for us," said Deans. We're operating on about 293 frequencies because it's not about the performers; it's all the technicians and the wireless-controlled stage scenic elements. We also have to co-ordinate all the hotel and casino's frequencies as well, which total around 600 and something. Otherwise there's a risk that we'll have security coming through our PA system saying, 'trouble on table two'!"
Sound, says Deans, has become a 'language' for Kà. "Technically, this is new territory but we want the audience to become immersed in the story. Total Production readers, because they are technical, will dissect it and say 'Oh, was there a show there as well?' But even then they'll leave with their mouths wide open!"
ULTIMATE DELIVERY
He commented: "By the time it's finally open to the public, this will have cost as much to prepare as the cost of James Cameron's Titanic. The producers are gambling at the scale of a very major Hollywood movie on the proposition that you can put it in one theatre, have it run for 10 years, and achieve the same kind of box office returns as a major movie.
"Grown men are in tears over the budget. It's around $165m at the moment - the show probably cost $65m and the renovation of the theatre (including the major mechanical elements of the staging and scenery) has swallowed about $100m."
As Fisher rightly observes though, ultimately, it's the artists who deliver the shows. "I would hope that the major thing that engages the audience is the emotional experience - if the artists engage with the audience and entertain them, the whole thing is wasted. In spite of this massive investment in technology and ephemera, it is nothing other than a very sympathetic background for them to perform with. And if that's what we've achieved, then we've got it right."
Smoke and haze are crucial to Kà as they help to emphasise the depth of the show, however, it was just as important that the effects systems interfaced appropriately with all of the MGM Grand's house systems - and that was a project in itself!
Holger Förterer, Kà's interactive projections designer, uses three Barco ELM R18 projectors to beam video and images on to the set. They are fed content by three computers, each running bespoke software designed by Förterer and his programmer colleagues. Each of the computers has dual 2.8MHz processor - one for video processing and image processing, the other handling virtual simulation and rendering.
After working on the sound design for the long-running Siegfried & Roy in the '80s, Jonathan Deans began his association with the Cirque with Saltimbanco. He has since worked on all of the Cirque's residential shows and following Kà's launch he will be designing the sound for the next epic - a production based on the music of The Beatles.
Despite being accustomed to working on massive productions with appropriately bloated budgets, even Mark Fisher's jaw has been loosened by the scale of Kà.